Watercolor Whales

Disclosure: Just an FYI…many of the links below are affiliate links that will earn me a commission if you purchase through them. If you do, I absolutely appreciate it! Rest assured that I only recommend things that I’ve personally used and loved. If you have any questions about any of the products or services please let me know!

We are seriously all about the coffee liners this week because there are so many simple and cute things to do with them! While I was working on creating our driveway chalk art masterpiece G got bored. So, I needed to come up with some other activity to keep him occupied. In the blink of an eye our Watercolor Whales were created.

What You’ll Need:

Coffee Filter and/or White Paper

A Water and Food Coloring Mixture to use as Paint

Sponge Brushes

Construction Paper

I threw a coffee liner in a bucket and gave him three containers filled with of water and food coloring. I recommend sticking to all warm or all cool colors so that your artwork doesn’t end up brown and muddy.

Then, I handed him two different sized sponge brushes and let him paint! He had fun watching the sponges absorb the color and it was neat to “empty” the sponge, too! Sometimes he squished it onto the paper and other times he squeezed it with his hand.

The first round was such a hit that we decided to try the same idea on paper. I dried both in the sun – laying the coffee filter flat and crumpling the paper into a ball. It’s not necessary to wrinkle your paper but I wanted to add an extra layer of texture.

Then, I estimated the size of both painted papers (which we will be using as a background) and cut two whales out of colored construction paper that would fit as an embellishment on them. I just free-cut my whale shapes out but another great idea is to find a coloring page/printable online and hang it on your window. Then, tape your colored paper on top of it and trace the whales using the sun as a natural light box!

Once the sheets of paper were dry we glued on the two whales. and hung them up in our art room! The coffee filter whale looks awesome hanging in a window with light shining through – it’s kind of like stained glass!

How did our Watercolor Whales work for your family? Did you use this method with other animals, shapes, or even alphabet letters? We’d love to hear about your crafting in the comments below. Be sure to follow us on Pinterest for more great crafts and activities for your young ones to do this summer!

Post navigation

HI! I’M ABI

I'm a single mom who works a full-time job and raises my toddler, all from home - 24/7. I love the idea of teaching my toddler through fun activities and projects so there's a lot of that here.. Check out the about me page for more background information and sign up for our monthly newsletter to inspire creative learning in your home!